Countdown

On 11 May 1998 the Indian government tested five nuclear devices some forty kilometres from Pokaran. Seventeen days later Pakistan tested nuclear devices of its own. About three months after the tests, Amitav Ghosh went to the Pokaran area, after which he visited Kashmir as part of the defence minister’s entourage. He also went to the Siachen glacier in the Karakoram mountains where Indian and Pakistani soldiers have been exchanging fire since 1983. Ghosh then travelled through Pakistan and Nepal.

‘‘ ‘Ghosh has established himself as one of the finest prose writers of hisgeneration of Indian writing in English’’
Financial Times

‘‘Ghosh is a traveller in the physical as well as the metaphysical, a writerof formidable learning and intelligence’’
The Indian Express